Posted
by
Soulskillon Wednesday October 10, 2012 @05:50PM
from the not-for-cooking-meth dept.

SchrodingerZ writes "Two Americans have won the 2012 Nobel prize in Chemistry for their work in cell research. Their work involves the discovery and manipulation of the G-protein-coupled receptors, which detect signals outside the of cells they inhabit. 'The human body has about 1,000 kinds of such receptors, which enable it to respond to a wide variety of chemical signals, like adrenaline. Some receptors are in the nose, tongue and eyes, and let us sense smells, tastes and vision.' The winners are Robert J. Lefkowitz and Brian K. Kobilka. Lefkowitz works at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and is a professor at Duke University Medical Center in Durham, North Carolina. Kobilka is a professor at Stanford University School of Medicine in California. Their research has helped create newer and more effective drugs with fewer side effects. More on G Protein-coupled Receptor research can be found in the Journal of Biological Chemistry."

Kobilka was hardly "long past due" - he isn't getting the prize for his work with Lefkowitz, he's getting it for the first structure of the beta-adrenergic receptor (and more generally, for figuring out how to make GPCR crystallization feasible), which was only in 2007, and especially for the structure of the GPCR:G-protein complex which was just published last year [nih.gov]. Quite a few people expected that to seal the deal, but this is a relatively quick prize.